Kyle Whittingham addressed the media on Monday, Sept. 2, 2013, at the University of Utah campus and answered questions regarding Utah's 30-26 victory over Utah State and the upcoming contest against Weber State. Here is a full transcript.

“Bubba and Kelvin are 1 and 1-A as we mentioned last week, and they're both on equal footing. They really both bring a different skill set to the table. Karl Williams is not far behind the other two. I mean, he's got his role as well. We think he's a good addition to those two guys.”

Kyle Whittingham, Utah head football coach

Kyle Whittingham addressed the media on Monday, Sept. 2, 2013, at the University of Utah campus and answered questions regarding Utah's 30-26 victory over Utah State and the upcoming contest against Weber State.

Kyle Whittingham (KW): OK, we got off to a good start to the season with the win against Utah State. I thought it was a great effort by our guys from start to finish. We weren't real efficient throughout parts of the game, but we did enough to get the win and hung in there 'til the bitter end, and it was good — really good — to get that win under our belt.

Moving forward to Weber State, this week we've got a lot of things to address that we've got to get better at, and that's our focal point, obviously, taking care of our deficiencies and trying to strengthen those.

I think there were seven or eight Division 1 teams that got beat by 1-AA teams this past weekend, so that certainly will get our players' attention. We know that we've got to play well, and Weber's coming off a big win. (There's a) lot of offense. They rush the ball extremely well, and really put up a lot of points. We've got our work cut out for us on defense, but like I said, more than anything this week, we've got to fix what we're not doing so well.

Questions?

Reporter: Coach, can you talk about what you saw from Travis Wilson? What press did you see from him?

KW: I saw a lot of growth and maturity compared to last season. Now, we saw that same growth and maturity during spring ball and throughout fall camp, but obviously he hadn't had a chance to show it in a game until this past week. He made great decisions. He threw the ball very efficiently. He was over 300 yards on only 28 attempts, which is outstanding if it only takes you 28 attempts to get over 300 yards. He took care of the ball as far as not turning it over in interceptions, and just ran the offense. He did a good job of staying poised and making sure that the offense ran as we wanted it to.

Reporter: After the game you weren't very pleased with some of the aspects of your offensive line play. When you went back and looked at the tape, was it an effort thing, was it a scheme thing, was it an opponent thing, and is that easily fixed or cleaned up this week?

KW: Well, it wasn't an effort thing at all. There's no question that we had great effort from all the players throughout the entire game, so that was something that was a positive. We've got to do a better job getting movement on our offensive line. Utah State did a good job slanting and gap exchanging and we've got to be able to pick that up.

We didn't handle the blitz very well. They pressured us a bunch — over 50 percent of the time — so we've got to do a better job of not only picking up blitzes but exploiting. When people blitz, you've got to have an answer and be able to make them pay for that. Those are two of the areas right there.

I didn't think we ran the football violently enough. The run game needs to be more productive and more physical.

There were a lot of good things. I don't want to put too much of a negative spin on the game, but there's a lot to work on.

Reporter: The loss of Kenneth Scott was obviously a big one. How much of a drop-off is it to Anthony Denham and Sean Fitzgerald? Do you expect them eventually to get back to where Kenneth was?

KW: Well, those guys that you mentioned stepped up big time in the game. (Audio cut) I thought they both responded.

Popular Comments

Good stuff, now can we get an article on the Utes' two new basketball
commits, 6'8" SF Kyle Kuzma, who picked the Utes over Michigan State,
UConn, Florida State and a host of others, and 6'1" PG Isaiah Wright,
choosing Utah
More..

4:29 p.m. Sept. 2, 2013

Top comment

MyPerspective

Salt Lake City, UT

I can just see it coming...by the end of the week Mendenhall says:
"we've determined to slow things up and execute at a higher level."

LOL!!!

Go Utes!

5:11 p.m. Sept. 2, 2013

Top comment

SillyRabbit

Layton, 00

"Reporter: You talked a lot about stepping up the tempo of the offense. Were
you satisfied with the tempo?

KW: Very much so. I think tempo's
overrated. I hear so much about tempo, it's starting to be a little
irritating. If
More..